


And Then There is No Mystery Left

by mcgarrygirl78



Series: #1 Crush [5]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Drama, Friendship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Please don’t give me the Kinsey scale excuse.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Then There is No Mystery Left

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the Rilo Kiley song, Portions for Foxes. With the last two stories it completes a trilogy about the budding relationship between these two characters.

“I forgot to compliment your boots earlier this week. Excellent choice.”

“I know right?” Amanda held out her right leg. They were black boots that went halfway up her calf with yellow stitching around them. “I got them for a song at Buffalo Exchange. Best thing about working there is I snatch the fetchest things before the other bitches get to it. Definitely an A+ addition to my already fantastic wardrobe.”

Today’s outfit was especially awesome in her humble opinion. She paired her boots with a pair of black tights, a red and black kilt, a 30 Seconds to Mars tee shirt and a black pleather blazer. She called it 21st century schoolgirl chic. Anderson agreed. 

He lit her Parliament Light as they sat on top of a table on the grounds of Lyndon Baines Johnson International Day School. It was a drizzly afternoon but it wasn’t too much of a bother. It was also cold but neither one of them cared. They needed to breathe fresh air and get away from the masses.

“So is Elle ever gonna speak to you again?” Amanda asked. She was simultaneously smoking her cigarette and chewing a black polished fingernail.

“I don't know…I'm sure she will. Aren't I allowed to keep some things to myself?”

“Sure. No one cares about your weight or what commercials make you cry. But when you land a stud muffin like Aaron Hotchner you need to be singing from the rooftops. Haven’t you read the High Schooler’s Handbook to the Universe?”

“I must’ve missed that one.” Anderson replied. “I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I wasn’t sure what to do with those feelings I didn’t know how to express. I didn’t want Elle to make it all about sex.”

“It was sex, right?” Amanda looked at him, blowing smoke above Anderson’s head.

“Oh my God, was it ever.” The teenager sighed just thinking about it.

“Did he tell you to keep it a secret? Did he force you?”

“No. I mean he probably didn’t want me making it locker room fodder but there were no threats. Hotch isn’t like that.”

“Oh, he isn’t one of those guys who gets other guys to polish his knob and then screams no homo?”

“No. I'm not sure what he is…he probably isn’t either. But at 18 are any of us really?”

“You came out at 14.” Amanda said. “Remember how your mom thought you missed your dad so much that you transferred your affection onto men.”

“Please don’t remind me.” Anderson rolled his eyes. 

“She sent you to that shrink.”

“You're reminding me.” He gave her a gentle punch on the arm. “I want to say she meant well but those were dark times. At least after 6 visits she actually listened to the doctor’s assessment. It’s still tough for her sometimes but she’s a good mom.”

“She’s better than what I got for a parent.” Amanda took a deep inhale of her cigarette.

“You're not always going to have to deal with that douchebag.” Anderson said.

“Sweetie, please. The world is filled with people like that douchebag. Sometimes I wish my mother was still here but she didn’t protect me when she was so…”

“I’ll always have your back.” He put his arm around her. 

Amanda had been dressing and living as a girl, except at home, since Anderson met her in ninth grade. She was his first; his first everything. He respected that she preferred to be a girl. She still had boy parts though and they made much use of them when they were a couple. Still, it was the feminine side of her that made Amanda feel safe and comfortable. One day she might not have those boy parts anymore, though she would need more than a job at Buffalo Exchange to achieve that. Anderson was still going to love her more than almost anyone else in the world.

“I’d marry you if you didn’t love my boy parts five times more than I do. Imagine how we’d set this world on fire.”

“We’re still going to do that, boy parts be damned. Sometimes they are much more trouble than they're worth.”

It had been a week and a half since Anderson had sex with Hotch. They fucked all night, like young people sometimes can. The next morning there was no real weirdness between them. It surprised Anderson but Hotch seemed genuine as they ate pizza and he prattled on about Whit Stillman. Even in school on Monday Hotch seemed OK. 

It was Anderson who felt different. There was no way Aaron Hotchner would ever be his boyfriend. There was no way he’d ever be more to the handsome, popular athlete than an easy lay. There was no way they'd ever share ice cream or hold hands or go to a Pride parade, or buy IKEA for their condo overlooking the Potomac. None of it was real and dreams were for little kids. 

So he avoided him like the plague. He made up lies about tests and said he'd have to bail on yearbook for the next week or so. He promised to come back, looking at his shoes when Hotch tried to gauge what was going on. Elle knew something was up as well but it took until the next weekend for her to needle it out of Anderson. The conversation didn’t go so well.

“ _You didn’t tell me! How could you?”_

_“Oh c'mon, you don’t share all of your sex stories with me.” Anderson sighed as they sat inside her car. Marcy Playground was on the radio…Elle listened to the worse 90s station._

_“That’s not the point, I'm your best friend.”_

_“Not the point? Elle, a best friend is more than someone who pushes you into things you don’t want to do and needles you until you tell them your darkest secrets.”_

_“Are you trying to say I'm not a good friend?” she asked it in that tone. That tone conveyed that she was about to go off._

_“I'm just saying I don’t want to talk about it, OK? That doesn’t mean forever, it just means right now. C'mon…”_

_“Yeah OK.” Elle nodded._

_Anderson wasn’t convinced. He’d known Elle a long time, knew all of her moods and tones. This was something that was going to keep coming up for the rest of forever and drive a wedge between them. He didn’t want that. He liked having Elle in his life, even if sometimes she drove him crazy. Anderson’s life was full of women so he was used to that._

_“I gotta get going…I have a date tonight.”_

_“Is it with Jason Gideon?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows. “You two have been seeing a lot of each other lately.”_

_“Maybe. You're not the only one who can keep secrets you know.”_

_“OK.” Anderson nodded and got out of the car._

_Elle peeled off when he was barely on the curb. This was so far from being OK. But he wasn’t going to let it get to him. Anderson had to live his life, such as it was. He had enough drama and did not want anymore. So he would give Elle her breathing room. It was probably a sign that he needed his as well_.

“I don’t like when people make you sad.” Amanda lit a second cigarette with her first.

“I'm good.” Anderson lied.

“Are you sure?” 

“I'm sure.” He nodded. “I'm 17, going on 18 and…”

“Oh my God, you almost made me break out into song.” Amanda laughed, which always sounded slightly maniacal when she was really happy. That wasn’t often. “I used to feel all kinds of guilt about having a crush on the Nazi delivery boy from that movie.”

“I had a raging crush on Brigitta,” Anderson said. “My life has been chaotic for a long, long time.”

“Angela Cartwright was really cute though.” 

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“Hey.” Hotch walked across the wet grass toward them. He was in pressed black slacks and wore his LBJ letter jacket to protect him from the cold. No one else was around, he was surprised security hadn’t come to break up this little powwow.

“Hi Hotch.” Amanda said. 

It was probably the first time she’d ever spoke to Aaron Hotchner. Still, she knew him…everyone knew him. Student athletes were like demigods around that place. They were demigods everywhere. Calling them by their first name, or last, was something they were probably used to; strangers or not.

“Hi Amanda. I need to talk to Anderson for a few minutes if you don’t mind.”

“I kinda mind.” She said.

“No, it’s OK.” Anderson said.

“Are you sure?” she looked at him.

“Yeah, I'm sure. You need to go inside anyway; you're shivering.”

“I don’t care if it’s cold when I look hot.” Amanda said.

“Yeah but you're gonna care when you get a head cold and can't go see Bitch Tits with us next weekend.” Anderson said.

“And on that note,” Amanda hopped off the table. “I'm outtie. You wanna meet up afterschool and take the train?”

“Yeah. See ya.”

“Ciao.” Amanda waved. “Later baseball boy.”

“Bye.” Hotch said. He watched her walk away with the same sway in her hips as most of the other girls in the hallway. Then he turned back to Anderson. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I've just been…it’s complicated.”

“We should probably get tee shirts made and point at them when people ask us things.”

“You're not gay.” Anderson said. “I know you're not gay and what happened last Friday was this wild fluke and now you're going to sneer at me and maybe even threaten me and this isn’t some John Hughes teen flick and it’s just better if I move on and forget about it.”

“I haven’t once sneered at you.” Hotch sat down beside him on the table. “I didn’t even sneer at you before I knew you. I'm not gay, Anderson.”

“Duh.” The teenager rolled his eyes.

“That doesn’t mean I'm straight either. There are more than just two things to be.”

“Please don’t give me the Kinsey scale excuse.” Anderson looked at him.

“You don’t want anyone to tell you what you are. I'm not going to let you tell me.”

Anderson didn’t say anything but he looked at the other boy. God, Hotch was still as handsome as ever. He was a nice guy but there was this twisting in Anderson’s stomach. Nothing about this could end well. They weren’t Andie and Blane, kissing in the parking lot at the end of _Pretty in Pink_ while OMD played in the background. This was real life and sometimes Anderson hated real life. It was why he watched so many movies and read so many books.

“I like girls but I like guys too.” Hotch said. “I guess I always have and it’s been one of the most difficult things I've ever had to face about myself. I'm probably not even facing it now. But what happened with us on Friday night, I don’t want to deny those feelings. Nothing about it was wrong.”

“Sex is awesome…you're not the first teenage boy to think so.”

“It’s more than sex. I like you. I don’t think I want a boyfriend, but I like you.”

“What do you want?” Anderson asked.

“How the hell should I know?” Hotch shrugged and then clenched his hand in a fist. Anderson immediately flinched but Hotch made no move to hit him. “I want to get the hell out of this town and far away from my family’s overinflated expectations. Right now that’s all I think about. Being with you was the only time I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“So you want to be friends?”

“I thought we were already headed there. Did I mess all that up when I let my emotions get the better of me?”

“That’s probably why you don’t.” Anderson said. “I'm not trying to profile you or anything but keeping it all tucked away, whatever it is, is safer. That doesn’t just apply to you. It doesn’t work you know; I speak from experience. We’re human beings, we crave each other. People have different ways of giving into those cravings but they always do.”

“So are you saying friends with benefits?” Hotch asked.

“Will you please get your mind off hot gay sex for like five minutes?”

“I wasn’t…”

“Look, I know I turned you out but you need to focus right now.”

“Turned me out?” Hotch raised his eyebrow. “Yeah OK. Can we just be friends? I want to be friends.”

“Do you want to be real friends or friends in my room?” Anderson asked.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You know exactly what it means.”

“We run in different circles around here and I know you get that.” He said. “But I've never had a problem saying hello, grabbing some lunch, or working together on the yearbook. I'm not a douche…I try not to be a douche. Don’t make me into one.”

“I know you're not a douche.” Anderson sighed. “I just don’t want to be some dirty secret either. I'm out, the people who love me know me. And I'm not saying that it’s not OK that you're not exactly sure where your sexuality lies. I'm just saying I'm not going to be some dirty secret for any guy.”

“Do you want me to wear a shirt that says ‘friends with Anderson’?” Hotch asked.

“It’s a start.” He nodded.

“I’d like to state for the record I wasn’t the one who went all cold shoulder.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be the cause of any stress or strain in your life.” Hotch said.

“I'm seventeen, hot stuff, get in line.”

“I cut Latin to come and talk to you.”

“Come to the dark side, Hotchner, we have brownies.” Anderson smiled.

“One day I won't be so damn scared of who I am or who I could become.” 

“When you figure it out, let me know. I’ll help you write the bestseller and we’ll both be rich. You're OK, Hotch. You're OK, I'm OK, and it’s going to be OK. So let it be written…so let it be done.”

“You're a little bit weird.” Hotch said.

Anderson smirked. He put his hand on Hotch’s shoulder. It was cold and they needed to get back inside. It was almost lunchtime and Anderson was starving. Plus, he needed to try and see if Elle was ready to talk to him. 

Once they went back inside those walls they had to be ‘those’ people again. It sucked but it was life…for now. Just as that wasn’t going to change, neither were Anderson’s feelings about Hotch. They were friends and he could live with that. Would they ever have cosmic sex again, only time would tell?

“I’ll be back in the yearbook room tomorrow.” Anderson said.

“Penelope will be glad to hear it. I don’t get most of her references.”

“It’s because you're square. I like you anyway.”

“I bet you say that to all the hot guys.” Hotch said.

“Yeah,” Anderson nodded. “I do.”

***


End file.
